RTEMS License

I want to use RTEMS or eCOS as commercial purpose,
I may have to make any modification on it, and embbed it on the machine
selled.

1. If I don't want to pay any money, will I have to open-source of my
modification code?

2. If I will pay for it, and don't wannna open my source (for millitary
purpose), How much should I pay, who will I pay to?

Thanks for your help.

On 13 Feb 2005 19:22:18 -0800, "Noah" <noah538@mail2000.com.tw> wrote:

>I want to use RTEMS or eCOS as commercial purpose,
>I may have to make any modification on it, and embbed it on the machine
>selled.
>
>1. If I don't want to pay any money, will I have to open-source of my
>modification code?
>
>2. If I will pay for it, and don't wannna open my source (for millitary
>purpose), How much should I pay, who will I pay to?

AFAIK, Open Source means, you have to make your sources available to
your customer (on request). But in a military project this might be
the case anyway.

Also, you have to disclose derived work, i.e. if you modify the Open
Source software you have to provide the modifications.

But in case of an (RT)OS, I doubt, that you have to disclose the
application: See commercial applications running on Linux.
-- 
42Bastian
Do not email to bastian42@yahoo.com, it's a spam-only account :-)
Use <same-name>@monlynx.de instead !

"Noah" <noah538@mail2000.com.tw> writes:
> I want to use RTEMS or eCOS as commercial purpose,
> I may have to make any modification on it, and embbed it on the machine
> selled.
>
> 1. If I don't want to pay any money, will I have to open-source of my
> modification code?

Yes.  RTEMS and eCos use a GPL license with an additional exception
clause that explicitly allows you to build applications that run on
top of the RTOS without the application needing to be GPL'd.  However,
changes to the RTOS itself still must be GPL'd.

I think the exception is identical for both RTEMS and eCos, but I
haven't compared them side-by-side.  You can find them here:
    http://ecos.sourceware.org/license-overview.html
    http://www.rtems.com/license/LICENSE

> 2. If I will pay for it, and don't wannna open my source (for millitary
> purpose), How much should I pay, who will I pay to?

For RTEMS, you'd have to ask OAR Corporation.

For eCos, you'd have to ask eCosCentric, Red Hat, and/or the FSF.  I'm not
sure which entity owns it now; there was talk of it being transferred to the
FSF, but I'm not sure whether that was completed.

What RTOS changes are you making that you don't want to share?

My target system may have to change many.

Chages may made from VHDL CPU code  (open source too) to RTOS
system/application.
Because my company need to use one of them as commercial purpose,
so we don't want our source to be open in order 'to protect the benifit
of our company's effort' on it.
I cannot not sure what modification will made now, As I know the system
will be VERY important/expensive application.
Maybe it's an aerospace application.

Noah wrote:
> My target system may have to change many.
> 
> Chages may made from VHDL CPU code  (open source too) to RTOS
> system/application.
> Because my company need to use one of them as commercial purpose,
> so we don't want our source to be open in order 'to protect the benifit
> of our company's effort' on it.
> I cannot not sure what modification will made now, As I know the system
> will be VERY important/expensive application.
> Maybe it's an aerospace application.
> 
Hello Noah,

You should look at the rtems web site and license conditions and
if you are still worried you should get in touch with Oarcorp.
The people there are very helpful and will
explain to you exactly what your open source obilgations would be.

You can use RTEMS with a closed source application, as per the
license file on their website.

Also here is a link to some applications that use RTEMS,
some of which are aerospace related.

http://www.rtems.com/phpwiki/index.php/RTEMSApplications

Regards

Paul

"Noah" <noah538@mail2000.com.tw> writes:
> My target system may have to change many.
> Chages may made from VHDL CPU code  (open source too) to RTOS
> system/application.
> Because my company need to use one of them as commercial purpose,
> so we don't want our source to be open in order 'to protect the benifit
> of our company's effort' on it.

Well, if you don't want to provide your kernel changes back, you should
buy a commercial kernel rather than using RTEMS or eCos.